


kingfisher girl

by floriographie



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Dad Jokes, F/M, Gen, Mostly Canon Compliant, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24976339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floriographie/pseuds/floriographie
Summary: In the sleepy snowdrifts of the Northern Continent, a girl was born and lived twenty-two years.. . .Vignettes from the life of Aerith Gainsborough.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Ifalna, Gast Faremis/Ifalna
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	1. buried in snow

"What Doctor Hojo believes is that the Cetra — the Ancient people — aren't human. That they're elves, or aliens, or maybe angels. That he can extract from my blood a map of their DNA, a map President Shinra believes will lead him to the Promised Land. I know you don't believe that, but... Dr. Fara—um, Gast... Please, try to see it from my perspective."

Ifalna shook her head softly. Her small hands fiddled anxiously with a lock of her hair, which tonight Gast could not help but notice she'd left loose about her shoulders in a cloud of coppery curls. Here in the flickering lamplight, Ifalna seemed to him to glow.

She lifted her gaze then, warm and sage and sad, from a dark knot in the rough-hewn kitchen table at which they sat — or rather, from some distant point beyond it, abandoned now to a steel city far behind them both. The smile she gave him was full of weary sorrow, and he felt a sudden wave of shame, but he smiled back, warmly. Waited quietly for her to continue.

"I'm human," she said. "My relationship to the Planet is... different, sure. More... intimate? But so would yours be if you'd spent your life out under the sun, your hands — and your feet! — in the earth. Midgar is all asphalt and concrete. I could never get used to it..." She sighed. "What I mean is... Well, they say Suncoasters are born swimmers, right? Babies born in Costa Del Sol tumble out of their mothers' bellies right into the waves. So you see..."

Ifalna paused for a moment, frustration knitting her brow. This was difficult for her to explain for a number of reasons, that much was clear.

"Have you studied Cetra writing systems at all?" she pivoted.

"Ah... some," Gast replied with a sting of embarrassment. "Some" may have been a generous assessment.

"Then you'll probably know these characters," she said, and sketched them neatly in the corner of Gast's stenopad. He did recognize them, at least: they spelled _Cetra._ "The first one of course means 'Planet' — literally 'earth', as in the soil beneath one's feet — and the second one means 'family' or, um, 'tribe', but not necessarily in an anthropological context..."

"I've also seen it translated as 'network,'" Gast added.

"Sort of. A social web. A group of people, or even creatures, bound to each other in some way. The Cetra were traditionally nomadic, so the 'network' of people and animals they traveled with, that represented their core concept of relationship. Your survival and your childrens' survival depended on its continued integrity. Anyway..."

She circled the second character, tapped it with the butt of the pen. One of the little professorial gestures she'd picked up from Gast over the course of their professional relationship. He smiled.

"This second character, 'tura', is a really common suffix, it's applied to all kinds of groups of things." She drew another set of characters beneath [ce•tura], isolated each as she spoke their names with a tap of her pen. "'Ma.' 'Tura.' 'Ma' of course means 'mother', so 'matra' is your network of relatives through your mother: your nuclear family. And this..."

She sketched another set.

"'Botra.' 'Bo' means 'beasts, animals' but specifically the animals you care for and who provide you with food and wool. In other words," she giggled softly, "your animal family!" 

The sound bloomed in Gast's chest like a match flame. Her laughter came a little more easily these days, but it felt to Gast even now like sighting a rare bird. He laughed too, gently, as if to avoid frightening it away.

"I think I understand. 'Cetra' is the name the Ancients used for themselves. A global family, whose survival is your survival."

"Exactly," she replied brightly. Gast could tell she relished sharing with him these glimpses into her inherited history. It was academic, familiar. Safe. "So as I was saying, 'cetra'..." She paused, absently rubbing the space between the bold arches of her eyebrows. "You know, I've forgotten where I was going with this."

"That's alright," Gast interrupted, eager now to distract her from her earlier discomfort. "This is good. Actually, I never did pay enough attention to these things. Linguistics. Men of science can be a bit single-minded, as you well know."

She giggled again. Yes. They could leave Hojo's grotesque theories for tomorrow. Besides, the rice was ready.

Gast rose from the table and shuffled over to an old cast-iron stove where a pair of copper pots bubbled cheerfully, filling the small room with a comforting, meaty aroma.

"You're very kind, Ifalna, to supplement my obviously wasted education with your own expertise. Would you teach me some more over supper?"

A grin pulled at Ifalna's pretty mouth, curling flirtatiously around her reply. "Oh, well in that case I'll have to start charging you tuition," she teased, and again Gast felt that honey warmth melting in his chest. Felt it ever more frequently. As the falling snow seemed to build battlements outside their window. As the days lengthened. As they outgrew their etiquette.

Ifalna's eyes glittered. "What do you want to know?"

"Ah, let's see..." he hummed, spooning a generous portion of steaming, fluffy rice on to Ifalna's plate. "What's the Cetran word for curry rice?"

Barely even a joke, but still she laughed, this time from her belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there, a few notes, story-specific and then general:
> 
> \- The title of this work comes from the song "KINGFISHER GIRL (The Song of 'Wish You Were Here')" by Maaya Sakamoto, Aerith's Japanese VA. It's from the album Shōnen Alice (少年アリス), and you should listen to it, it's really good.
> 
> \- The soundtrack for this chapter is Videri String Quartet's arrangement of "Buried in Snow", you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z21ciWiAe8
> 
> \- I've chosen to portray Ifalna not just as 'the last pureblood Cetra' *cringe* but as herself a scholar of Cetran linguistics and cultural history (I mean, duh). It would be in character for Hojo or whoever to invite Ifalna to Midgar on the pretense of professional collaboration, and then... well, you know the rest.
> 
> And also:
> 
> \- Writing is my hobby, I'll improve or I won't; no crits, gushing praise and glowing reviews only please!
> 
> \- I drive slow, we'll get there when we get there.
> 
> \- I'll probably make small edits here and there, at such a time as the thing I've written becomes embarrassing to me. Will also add characters/pairings/warnings as necessary. All canon pairings (and some others coughAerTicough) will be honored, but I'm a Tseng/Aerith main, so you'll forgive me if (eventually) I end up lingering there for a disproportionately long time...


	2. pure heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- This chapter is short! A lot of them will be like this, just little vignettes.
> 
> \- The soundtrack for this chapter is a melancholy acoustic guitar arrangement of "Aerith's Theme" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDqlhMwW8wM), and the little snippet of lyrics is from Rikki's "Pure Heart" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1FUf_-_fqk). I like to think of "Pure Heart" as an old Cetran folk song Ifalna sometimes sang to little Aerith as a lullaby, and that would eventually become her leitmotif.

As the hard angles and cement chill of the ground beneath her back became less distinct to her senses, Ifalna gazed up into the panicked and uncomprehending face of her seven-year-old daughter, almost certainly for the last time, and breathed as much as she could of this long-forgotten lullaby, as countless mothers before her had done, and after she was gone maybe none would do again.

"...Beyond this long 

and winding road,

I'm sure there's something 

to believe in..."

She hoped Aerith would recall if not the words then at least their melody, and in the secret language of song remember her that mother had loved her.

So much. So much.


End file.
